You may remember Exposing the ELCA's blog discussing ELCA Pastor Clint Schnekloth. (readhere) He pastors Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Fayetteville, AR, which is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). On April 7, 2015, Good Shepherd Lutheran made an announcement on their Facebook page: “JOURNEY TOGETHER FAITHFULLY, our congregational study of issues related to faith and human sexuality, continues Sunday, April 12 at 10:00 am in the Fellowship Hall with a Transgender Panel open to the public. GSLC will welcome (two transgender persons) to share their personal stories and how they reconcile being a trans person and a Christian. Please join us for this informative panel and Q&A session. Reservations are not required.” (see here and here)Following the Sunday morning transgender panel at Good Shepherd Lutheran, this post was made by Pastor Schnekloth on the ELCA Clergy Facebook page: “Our transgender and Christian forum today was crowded and incredible. Lots to ponder, including the comparison between being born again and transitioning, and in general how much transition is tied into Christian faith. Amazing morning!” (see here)Clint Schnekloth's church split a few months ago and shortly thereafter Pastor Schnekloth is presenting to his congregation the similarities of being born again and transitioning from one gender to the other. Just another example of the ELCA and its congregations celebrating sin instead of leading people to the cross for repentance and forgiveness. Grace cannot be fully experienced when sin is not acknowledged.

Nadia Bolz-Weber's and Clint Schnekloth’s ELCA is nothing if not obligingly malleable and ever ready to swear fealty to the world’s latest edict.

Homosexual “marriage” is almost a passe’ cause today. A number of states have judicially or legislatively imposed it, and the ELCA has, of course, embraced it and performed the Bible-defying ceremony in its churches.

But the faithless must be continually stirred up, so the movers and shakers of the sexual revolution have decreed that transgenderism will be the next Brave New Sexual Libertine Advance. And faster than you can say “Yes, boss,” ELCAnite “leaders” like Bolz-Weber and Schnekloth are now dutifully and desperately trying to prove their moribund denomination is still hip and relevant.

C. R. Wiley, in a Touchstone Magazine book review entitled “Fallen Family,” writes, “. . .We should remember that Christianity has already accounted for [human frailty]. Sinners need forgiveness and realignment with the healthful order of creation. That is what the Atonement [denied by the likes of Bolz-Weber] does for us. A fundamentally different sort of realignment is occurring in the liberal churches, however, where the doctrines of the faith have been adjusted to bring them into accord with the modern spirit. But political correctness is a merciless spirit, as anyone who has begged for clemency from her can attest. In their attempts to placate her by wringing their hands and purging hymnals of offensive pronouns, liberals have only made themselves ridiculous.” [ http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/issue.php?id=178 ]

Leave it to Martin Luther, who would be kicked out of Nadia Bolz-Weber’s and Clint Schnekloth’s ELCA faster than you can say “You’re fired, David Yeago” ( http://juicyecumenism.com/2014/09/01/churches-division-sex/ ), to supply the last, predictably and faithfully Biblical word:

“It [the Gospel] teaches us everything — the nature of God, of ourselves, and what has been and is to be in regard to heaven, hell and earth, to angels and devils. It enables us to know how to conduct ourselves in relation to these — whence we are and whither we go. But, being deceived by the devil, we forsake the light of day and seek to find truth among philosophers and heathen totally ignorant of such matters. In permitting ourselves to be blinded by human doctrines, we return to the night. . . Paul says, ‘Neither present your members unto sin as instruments of unrighteousness’ (Rom. 6:13), meaning: Let not the works of darkness get such control of you as to render your members weapons of unrighteousness.” [Martin Luther, “First Sunday in Advent,” Sermons of Martin Luther, Vol. 5, Baker Books 1995, pp. 17, 19]

If being "born again" (Jn 3:3) meant merely having some radical change of attitude or perspective, you could be born again by having a lobotomy, or taking LSD.

But Jesus clarifies what he means in his next sentence: "No one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit" (Jn 3:5). The Spirit of God is the Spirit of TRUTH (Jn 14:16-17). He reproves us of sin (Jn 16:7-8). He leads us to mortify the deeds of the body (Rom 8:13).

Only in the ELCA would anyone equate being born again with having cosmetic surgery and lying to yourself about your gender.

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Stan Weaver

7/12/2015 10:02:53 am

Pastor Schnekloth's "gospel" is this: "If you were a sissy (or a tomboy) as a child, you're actually a female trapped in a male's body (or vice versa), and you need to have a sex-change operation."

I'm saying nothing against sissies or tomboys or even homosexuals. I'm condemning the charlatan doctors who line their own pockets by keeping their patients in perpetual confusion, or by performing pointless surgery. And I'm condemning the ELCA leaders who promote those charlatans.

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Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. ​1 Thessalonians 5:21

Dan Skogen

Former ELCA seminary student and former ELCA member who is fed up with the ELCA's consistent mockery of God's Word.

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